When Samsung launched its new tablet, the Galaxy Tab, hopes were high that the market would see a strong competitor to the Apple iPad. Samsung"s original announcement of one million units sold showed promise in the device, and the tech community was thrilled when Samsung announced it had sold two million units in three months, that was, until Samsung backtracked that statement, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
During the company"s quarterly earnings call, Samsung announced the sales weren"t actually sales, but the amount of units shipped worldwide. During the Call, Samsung"s executive Lee Young-hee said “then, in terms of sell-out, we also believe it was quite smooth."
"We believe, as the introduction of new device, it was required to have consumers invest in the device. So therefore, even though sell-out wasn"t as fast as we expected, we still believe sell-out was quite OK."
Lee used the term "sell-out" - amount of units shipped to a consumer - and "sell-in" - amount of units sold to a distributor - to reflect the number of actual sales.
As for the suspected two million units sold, those were actually sold to carriers and retail outlets, meaning the actual sales were far less than previously announced.
It gets worse for Samsung. Turns out, out of the actual sales to consumers (no number was officially given), 16% of consumers are returning them, according to AllThingsDigital.com. That"s a pretty high return rate for any device. Verizon stated that only 2% of iPads sold in its stores were being returned.